You can own an AR15 in NZ.

You can have high capacity magazines in NZ.

It is a popular 3-gun competition and hunting firearm.

"but our average annual firearm homicide rate for the last 30 years or so is ~0.2 deaths per 100k people."

Yet you still allow ownership of these items, and still have murder rates by firearm (and in general) lower than most of the world.

NZ's laws work because they stop criminal and crazy people from owning these items.

Australia banned semi auto rifles of all types and high capacity magazines outright (except for some very exceptional circumstances) yet our firearm homicide rate (and general murder rate) is on average worse than NZ's.

One can allow these items to be owned, they just need to be the right people (you already alluded to that).

Forget about the old armed populace vs tyrannical government trope. Unless you want to admit that there would be a civil war at that point (large amounts of the armed forces would revolt, military weapons in hand, against attacking their own families).

In contrast to the implication from Myers, saying "I don't want congrats, I wan't toughness & vigilance" is not spreading bigotry or misinformation.

I'm in favour of firearm regulation. But there are plenty of countries with ready availability of AR15s to vetted people showing that it is the vetting process and the demeanor of the populace that are the major factors in criminal activity with legal firearms (illegal firearms used in criminal activity being a different thing). Focus should be on regulating firearms away from criminal and crazy people.

The fact the gun lobby won't let the CDC do it's job and collect data on gun violence just shows how insane political right is.

Then the right is blaming ISIS... the idiot pledged allegiance to ISIS and Hezbollah, even though they are enemies of each other. He clearly just had an issue with gays, and was using faith as an excuse. Most of the mass shootings in the US aren't done by Muslims in an act of terrorism, they are done by crazy people who have unfiltered access to guns.

I'd be fine if we don't close the gun show loophole or don't ban people from buying assault weapons, for now, so long as we first at least let the CDC get back to doing its job and collect data on gun violence. Then explore it in a few years of data collection to see what measures would be helpful. The fact the right refuses to let that happen must tell you that they know what the data will show, that some loopholes need closed.

And yes, if you are on the federal no flight list (and I haven't seen that this shooter was on such a list, just investigated twice), then you should certainly be delayed in getting a gun. That should be a huge red flag. You should then be told why you were denied and then have a right to argue for the right to own a gun and/or get off the no flight list. It should be a clear process to make such an application, and shouldn't require a lawyer. But odds are that most people on the no fly list aren't there for search history, or library records, but most are on the no fly list undoubtedly for far better reasons.

I'll fight to retain the right for most Americans to own a gun. Both a hand gun for personal home defense, and hunting rifles and the like. However if you are in a situation that requires an AR-15 to defend yourself, you are way over your head.... and don't give me some bull shit about protecting yourself from the government, remember how well having even more powerful weapons and training did for the people in Waco. Where do people who argue that those should be sold without restriction want to draw the line (and to be clear, I'm not arguing against the right to own one necessarily, but I am against buying it without restrictions, for a smaller wait time than it would take to buy a handgun)? Do we let people buy a bazooka? A surface to air missile launcher? A nuclear bomb? Where do you draw the line on putting restrictions, or at least a wait time on weapons of mass harm?

@dag @newtboy @VoodooV

I do enjoy this site. I enjoy the posts and videos. I agree with some and disagree with others.


I don't complain to Dag when ever I am treated unfairly or a bad post is slandered against me. Even when I post video that clearly is to the disliking of most of this site and it gets yanked for having 3 down votes. I may think that is not fair but that's the rules, so be it.

As the minority on this site I could ask Dag to solicited more conservative viewpoints to this site but that would not be fair to ask him to help "stack the deck" for poor little ol me.

Liberals do not hold the majority view in America. Not by a long shot.
As of 2014
Conservatives 37%
Moderates 35%
Liberals 27%

So don't feel that you hold the majority opinion when you clearly don't.

Sifters may hold majority it here on the sift but in the real world Liberal ideas are a rightfully discarded ideas of crazy people.

A valuable lesson, I guess, to all of us - sometimes crazy people film their shitty, destructive lives, as an example and a warning.

Meh, I don't think states should fly it, but I will defend to the last an individual's right to fly it if they choose to do so. I don't have to agree with them, but I would still defend it. Trying to shove people's first amendment rights down the gutter of political correctness has done nothing to help us. If anything it has made it harder to identify the crazy people.

So many things wrong with this argument...

A. I don't see politicians going around shooting people with guns, so what on earth does this have to do with the topic?!
B. Yes, yes, we have an epidemic of children getting killed with explosives right now. No, that's right... we have school SHOOTINGS... you know... WITH GUNS! And what do we do about crazy people with explosives?! Have everyone else carry explosives?!
C. Yes, you are correct... not everyone just wants your TV. Yes, in some cases, they're psychopaths, and you'd be better off with a gun than society having sweeping gun control. Also, in a small fraction of car accidents, wearing a seat belt could actually kill you, too.

Do you see the problem with your argument? The very fact that we all can get guns so easily, and the fact they are so pervasive increases the chances of someone having a gun who would like to attack you, and you having a gun doesn't make up for that increased chance. So you can site individual situations all you want, but statistics are readily available that show beyond a shadow of a doubt that sweeping gun control does overall make you safer.
D. Pretty sure his argument wasn't that we need gun control with our military.
E. It's naive of you to believe you're "protecting yourself" by owning a gun, when we know society is safer with sweeping gun control.

Folks: please realize how ignorant you sound when you use the terms like "Crazy People" and "This is what's wrong with America".

@SquidCap - No matter how insane a person appears, they're still on the same spectrum of intelligence and existence that you occupy, and to call them crazy is to dismiss and downplay their differences in perspective. That makes you prejudiced and part of the problem for not trying to understand the intricacies of human beings.

@song77 - In the massive landscape of 'what's wrong with America', this is an insignificant annoyance, and isn't inherently bad or good. Pinning one miniscule aspect of a gripe on a massive and complex system is a mechanism for people to cope with the world, not an answer to the problem as a whole, ever.

What i see is vigilantes and crazy people wanting to get shot down and martyred by cops.

I'm pretty sure that when you ask the citizens in a warn torn country where guns are actually a requisite to survival what they feel about people carrying guns out in the open and i'll bet they don't like it either. They just have to do it. You, on the other hand, carrying one in USA don't actually need it. If you open carry, you just like to scare people.

The whole "i'm allowed to do what i want" theme goes out the window when the symbol in question actually is designed to kill living things. I had to think hard what is the difference between other freedoms, say, gay pride parade. You have to just accept it no matter what you think about it. One could say the same about freedom to carry guns but that's where i draw the line: does it kill you or not. If it doesn't, deal with it and move on. If it does, remove it from the public. Not against guns in the privacy of your own home but they DO NOT belong to streets unless they are carried by a professional.

And no, i don't trust the law enforcement blindly but they enforce laws that we have allowed our representatives to put in place.. if you have a problem with laws, you take it where the laws are made, not to the people enforcing them... And definitely you don't scare everyone else getting one either, which this "open carry activism" WILL lead to: you see guns out in the open, "I think need one now just to pop to get some milk, better get my AK".. Stupid stupider gun-nut. The same people are "rolling coal" plus a host of other symptoms.

Having more guns will just leave to more violence, that is a fact that is definitely shown in study after study. The way non-carrying citizens react to this should be a clear sign: society does NOT want that. Isn't that enough reason to stop?

Funny how you "argue"....'you're absolutely wrong, and if your right I don't care' and 'I have more important and interesting things to do than argue', then you continue to argue. Just too funny, I guess that means you're done learning.
Tell Venus a planet can't 'die' from a runaway greenhouse effect. What I meant was die as a place where people and other 'higher level' organisms can live. Bacteria and waterbears can live with or without the planet, so they don't count.
Yes, the internet is full of crazy people, but you can change if you accept your insanity. I don't see that happening. :-)

The planet is not going to "die." And even if it does, I have some more important things to do than this "debate" and much more productive, not to mention entertaining, to do beforehand.

The world is fully "crazy" people. And some find their way to the interwebs.

I am *certain* I've seen a different "crazy people dancing" video at this exactly location. Does this sound familiar to anyone else?

Viral for XBox1. Only CRAZY PEOPLE buy PS4s.

Why are these words offensive? Because some assholes uses them to dismiss others? Is "woman" an offensive word now too? Women drivers. Women's health. Women's rights.
Why don't we, for a change, stop turning words into stigmatas and instead change their definition into something more objectively descriptive? Language changes, it's not static, let's embrace that. Let's stop making more and more tools for awful people to hurt others. "Homosexual" was once nothing but a horrible insult and a description of human moral failure. Now we're looking at a future where it is as offensive as the word woman. Or blond. Or plumber.
It is becoming nothing but an adjective. We're getting there.
Crazy people deserve much better than that, they have enough on their plate.

You're one of those crazy people I've been hearing about.